Chris Giordano

In September 2017 my mother and I completed a 10-Day self drive road trip tour circling the land of Fire and Ice with a dense 43-page itinerary that kept us on the move - often with 10-12 hour days - to see lots of iconic landmarks in a short period of time! Following a 7hr red eye flight to Keflavík we picked up our Kia Sportage (with built in GPS and additional Wi-FI router - these came in handy when navigating difficult locations!) and from there our adventure began! Landscapes ranged from epic sea cliffs with waterfalls or glacier tongues erupting from them seemingly every two minutes, to expansive rolling hill pastures, and moss covered rocky lava fields. We quickly realized N1 stations would be our best friends as they had petrol for the car, snacks, coffee, and friendly employees. Challenges arose with figuring out the order of destinations to navigate to in keeping up with the itinerary, and so as not to backtrack. Each night we would go over when we should wake up, visit Destination 1, when to leave Destination 1 to catch a tour at Destination 2, etc etc. Meanwhile I'd be offloading footage, charging different camera batteries, and posting daily summaries to Facebook. Overcoming these adventure travel challenges, however, let us experience a vast spread of Iceland, learn a lot of history, and meet wonderful people. Visiting in September had reduced crowds and surprisingly crisp weather; usually around 50°F in the day, with minimal rain and wind.

If you’ve been thinking of visiting Iceland I hope watching this video shows some secrets of what you'll see and helps solidify your decision - this place is life changing! We saw DOZENS of friends and young couples driving around in small “Happy Camper” vans spending the night wherever they could park. There were people like us following an itinerary and staying in hotels, and even many people backpack traveling and likely staying in hostels or AirBnB!

Cameras

4k footage is so nice, we've been through everything together, truly spectacular footage for how versatile and rugged this product is. It's waterproof to 30feet, this means I could throw it in the waterfalls, strap it to a selfie stick and drop it 3ft into glacier water in Jokulsarlon for epic underwater footage!

Hard to really explain how game changing this thing is for a photog/videographer...it really is amazing to be able to fly and get very workable 4k aerial footage for such a manageable price. Flying over glacier tongues in Southern Iceland, along the coat of Northern Iceland, and through the mountains of the west, offered some of the most spectacular glimpses of the Land of Fire and Ice I had ever seen.

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LENSES

My all time favorite lens over the last 10 years, I cannot get enough of the beautifully immersive photos this lens creates, it's essential for landscape photography, and creates pulls the viewer in more for videography especially on crop sensor cameras. Some people prefer the 24-70mm for a bit more reach, that's cool too!

Iceland - 10 Day Ring Road Road Trip

Follow along with the photos and videos from the field / behind the scenes from Ann and Chris' intense 10-day self drive tour of Iceland via the iconic Ring Road in September, 2017.
Check out the interactive map below to see where many of these spectacular sights were located!